Penetrating defenses seems to be the bottom line of his reasoning
Problem is, you either pen the defenses (because not enough AA and SAMs pers km of front line basically) or you don’t
If you want to do some deep strikes though, you’re usually going to strike something fixed, and as a certain conflict shows, drones can do that fine
Tree top is also nice, but if the opposing airforce is half competent and has an awacs linked to its long range SAMs, the helis are basically done.
Finally the assumption that a target far from a front line wouldn’t be protected is questionnable. It’s not like cruise missiles / ballistic missiles have been around for decades at this point, and strategic sites protection has evolved accordingly
Except for drones which are mostly low tech, the gear from the eastern most country in the aforementionned conflict has not shown to shine by its efficiency
It’s not to say that the modern gear said country makes is necessarily bad (although possibly inflated in its advertising), but what makes the main bulk of its mass is made up of cold war gear.
Good at the time, but won’t cut it in the 2020s
Spoiler
And if it was as efficient and as mass produced as they claim (and might i add as it is portrayed in game), we would be talking of this event as a past one.
I think you are forgetting about EW aircraft and SEAD operating in support
and that there arent long range air to air missiles to push AWACS further away from the front lines limiting their ability to detect low flying aircraft
with proper support they absolutely would be able to slip through the defenses
you also seem to be under the assumption that there are no logistics assets that move around behind the lines and are not hugely protected
Not saying it’s impossible, but that seems like a very large amount of resources to make some helos go through when i can send a small volley of cruise missiles or a bunch of drones
but it wouldnt just be to send helos through, they would probably preform a number of strikes simultaneously and use the opportunity to send helos through
if they are already running a bunch of SEAD and EW to strike other targets why wouldnt they send helos through to target logistics and supply chain
Helicopters are very easy to kill, Flakrad and HQ17 missiles can reach an heli 5km away in a few seconds, many maps require you to climb a bit to spot things to shoot, and a good SPAA operator can kill you before you descent below the horizon, even Adats can do that.
Not to mention things like Otomagic and RDF/HSTVL that have proxy rounds that helis have no warning are coming.
And of course, if only the new SAM-Main players just didn’t sit at spawn, most of the time i die is because someone using Sky Saber or SAMPT had enough brainpower to hide behind a building, and become immune to being tracked to helis flying low, but still able to lock and shoot them
saying it has slightly less killing power is being disingenuous. It’s at best a coin toss on whether or not you will kill or even significantly damage a vehicle in one hit. The LMUR is a guaranteed one shot kill
If you pop up, shoot LMUR, possibly two, and immediately go behind cover. There’s nothing reliable a Flakrad or HQ17 can do against that other than try to intercept these missiles. Furthermore, funny of you to mention the RDF/HSTVL when the lack of radar makes it very hard to find the heli popping up and down, and impossible to intercept the missile fired at you.
Point is, helicopter rotors need to give off a radar signature, DIRCM needs to be fixed(certain missiles like IRIS-T are immune to it, and it can only intercept one at a time), and AA ammo count needs to be standardized.
PS: I checked your account, why am I not surprised to see you have a K/D of 7.2 in the Mi-28NM + a winrate of 71% with it. Are you afraid to see your OP heli get nerfed? Also realized you don’t own a single of these newly added large sized AA, so you wouldn’t know how complicated it is to place them out of spawn without instantly getting sniped because of the tiny map designs and often easy view into spawn by enemy team.
The Z10ME is a lot more unreliable with its overpressure one shot than the LMUR against some heavier targets because of its much lower explosive mass. For example, the Z-10ME is almost unable to damage the Merkava 4 with its missile. Meanwhile the LMUR can kill it easy with overpressure.(Similar scenario can be seen with other tanks)
Screenshot example:
Chinese missile
LMUR
Rotor blades giving radar signature and corrected DIRCM would also affect the Z-10ME anyway. It’s just that the LMUR is the more oppressive one of the lot at the moment.
If the game was accurate to real life, an unarmored BUK wouldn’t survive 5 JAGM, my friend. Or is that realism argument only valid for you to defend Russian equipment cause I sure as hell ain’t seeing you campaign for more reliable damage from Spike, JAGM, etc.
